


Friends, Waffles, Work

by Kacka



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-19 14:12:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11315055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kacka/pseuds/Kacka
Summary: Bellamy somehow gets put in charge of running the Parks & Rec social media. Clarke agrees to help him but not without laughing at him a lot.





	Friends, Waffles, Work

"Alright, next item on the agenda..." Bellamy tries not to roll his eyes as Jaha trails off, combing through his near-illegible notes.

Staff meetings usually end up like this, discussing whatever topics Jaha can recall or make up off the top of his head, until Vera inevitably fills the silence with updates on her pet programs nobody else wants that many details about (seriously, Bellamy is as big a fan of trees as the next person, but her Saturday morning wellness group is starting to sound more and more like a cult), and Luna sitting passively by, diligently taking notes and refusing to exchange even the slightest expression of mutual understanding that Bellamy shoots her way.

Don't get him wrong; Bellamy likes his coworkers. It's not the tight-knit, found-family feel Leslie Knope had prepared him for when he got hired to his small town's Parks & Recreation division, but they each care a lot, in their own way. All of his favorite people care way too much about stuff. It's what he likes in a person.

And he does like parks. Arcadia has some pretty nice ones, clean and well-kept with cool signs about historical things that happened nearby and/or noteworthy plant species. Not to mention that time last year he got to quash a movement for a confederate monument. That was one of his finer moments, if he does say so himself.

Mostly, he took the job to get a foot in the door of local government, but the soft spot he's always harbored for parks-- free, accessible, fairly safe spaces for him and Octavia to hang out in when they didn't want to be at home, growing up-- is what clinched the deal.

Still. Staff meetings are the worst.

He's in the middle of wondering whether anyone is going to eat the last bagel Luna brought in, and also whether it has hemp in it, when Jaha says his name.

He blinks, looking up, and finds everyone staring at him.

"Sorry. I zoned out for a second. What's up?"

"I was saying I have a special project for you," says Jaha, and Bellamy groans inwardly.

Jaha likes to act like he's grooming Bellamy to take over his position as head of the department one day and especially likes assigning Bellamy special tasks to 'prepare' him for such an eventuality. They've ranged from the not-so-bad (asking Bellamy to sit in for him at open forums) to the slightly irksome (chaperoning juvenile delinquents as they picked up trash for community service hours) to the truly unpleasant (there's a situation with a duck Bellamy would prefer to never think about again).

He mentally prepares himself for the worst, asking, "What's the project?"

"We've been throwing around ideas to generate more interest in the parks now that the weather is nice again."

"Sure," Bellamy says slowly. "The _Get Outside_ campaign."

They'd been preparing different strategies for it all winter. Bellamy had worked very hard to get them to change the name from the _Get Out_ campaign, which he felt had slightly less friendly and inviting connotations.

"Precisely." Jaha beams as if he'd like to give Bellamy a gold star. "Young children and their parents are an easy audience to appeal to. Playgrounds are always a hit in the summer. But we've struggled with reaching the millennial demographic."

Bellamy winces. Luckily, nobody seems to notice.

"Did you want me to come up with ideas?" He asks, his mind already spinning through a few options. Not talking about them as if they're some other species would be a good place to start. But Jaha shakes his head.

"Not exactly. We thought, instead of trying to get teenagers and young adults to come to us, we'd take our message to them. We'd like you to cultivate an online presence for us."

"Online," Bellamy repeats slowly. "Like... our website?"

"Social media," Vera interjects. "Facebook, Twitter, the picture one."

"Instagram?"

"If you say so."

"Are you familiar with these platforms?" Jaha asks.

"Vaguely." He scratches the back of his head and admits, "I've never used them much."

"You're bright. I'm sure you'll pick it up quickly," says Jaha. "Unless there's another problem...?"

He swallows, thinking it over. Jaha can't be trusted with computers (he trusts every email that knows his name and nearly sold everything including his soul to a hacking scam once), Vera wouldn't know where to begin, and Luna-- When his eyes flicker to her, a question, she smirks and holds up an actual flip phone.

Unfortunately, he can see how he was their best bet.

"No problem," he lies. "I'm sure I'll figure it out."

"Good. Now let's move on to... Let's see, where were we..."

* * *

Clarke, because she's a good friend, cackles when he tells her.

"Don't they know that saying about old dogs and new tricks?"

"It has nothing to do with how old I am," he grumbles. So what if he's almost thirty? She's only a few years younger than he is. She's not exactly one to talk.

"Bellamy, even my grandfather texts me instead of calling these days. Or at least emails."

"It's called an i _Phone_ for a reason, Clarke. Calling is way more efficient. I'm a busy guy."

"Sure," she smiles fondly. "You've got that schedule of yours jam-packed with avoiding people and watching Netflix documentaries."

He shakes his head instead of coming up with a retort. She knows he's got a lot on his plate, that he isn't really capable of leaving work at City Hall when he leaves for the night. She's the same way. It's why he's mostly only seen her for forty-five minutes at a time, timing their quick lunch breaks so that they coincide with each other.

He met her a couple of years ago when she started working in the Department of Public Health. She'd been tasked with tracking down every employee at City Hall and ensuring they got their flu shot. Bellamy had never in his life gotten a flu shot, and also never gotten the flu, but Clarke isn't one to take no for an answer. In the end, she used a combination of unresistable idealism ("Be the change, Blake. We're supposed to set an example for the people.") and unrelenting annoyance ("Quit being such a baby." "I'm not a baby." "You're right. Obstinate, curmudgeonly, you're an elderly man.") to get him to fold.

Of course, he'd gotten the flu anyways, bad enough he stayed home from work a couple of days. When he'd come back, there had been a basket of fruit and muffins and adult diapers on his desk, courtesy of Clarke. He'd bought her a coffee to repay her, and their friendship had grown from there.

He's been trying to figure out a health-conscious angle for _Get Outside_ , one that would give him an excuse to drop by her office more often, maybe even work together on some projects. So far he hasn't come up with anything but he's not giving up yet.

"You're going to help me, right?" He asks, instead of rising to her provocation. "I have no idea what I'm doing. I barely even know what a hashtag is."

"You definitely know what a hashtag is," Clarke snorts. "I've seen the way your sister texts. But yeah, I can help you set up the accounts. When were you thinking about doing it?"

"Probably sometime this week. At home, though, so I can drink during."

"Yeah, that's a good plan. What about Wednesday night?"

"I can be free Wednesday," he says, which is an understatement. He's a workaholic, but he can always make time for Clarke.

"Cool." She smiles, looking genuinely excited. "I'll send you some links to other government agency accounts, corporate accounts, Denny's tumblr. You know. Research."

He makes a face. "That's probably a good call."

"Don't worry," she says, patting his arm. "Plenty of organizations are using social media to fight bigoted assholes these days. You're going to pick it up in no time."

"You know, even though Jaha said the same thing, it sounds a lot more reassuring coming from you."

"Well, yeah. I know what you're about."

"Fair point," Bellamy concedes. He doesn't mention that most things sound more convincing coming from her.

Wednesday after work he loiters in his office until he's the last one there, then saunters casually up two flights and down the hall to where Clarke works. She's typing furiously, blonde wisps falling out of her bun and her blue eyes narrowed in concentration.

He wouldn't be surprised if she were replying to an ordinary email or playing some kind of game or even online shopping. Something totally laid-back, except that Clarke Griffin and laid back have never been formally introduced.

When he knocks on the doorframe, she glances up and gives him a small smile.

"Hey. One second, I'm almost done."

"Take your time."

Instead of watching her like he wants to, he studies the giant poster on the wall behind her that encourages people to vaccinate their children. Back when she first put it up, he'd gone through with a Sharpie and added eyebrows to the figures in every frame because they were incredibly creepy without them. As he admires his handiwork (if he didn't know, wasn't there, he might not be able to tell someone had added them in later), it occurs to him that he sometimes forgets how close they actually are. It probably has something to do with the fact that he can never get enough of Clarke, but the proof, the imprints they've left in each other's lives, is undeniable.

Her laptop snapping shut jolts him out of his thoughts.

"Ready to go?"

" _I'm_ waiting on _you_."

"And _I'm_ doing you a favor, so that means you're not supposed to give me a hard time."

Bellamy grins. "Where would we be if I never gave you a hard time?"

"Well, you'd have died from the flu so... probably haunting my office."

"Yeah, sounds about right." He holds the door to the building open for her, surprised to find that it's already dusk. It always sneaks up on him this time of year. They pile his bike in the trunk of her mini-SUV and fall into an argument about whether the push for self-driving vehicles is a conspiracy driven by Pixar and by the time they get to his place, he's pretty much forgotten why she's coming over.

It would be so nice if they just went home together at the end of the day. He could get so used to it.

But then, after they've ordered a pizza, she gets out her laptop and settles in beside him on the couch, closer than normal.

"So," she says, focused. "Social Media. What are you thinking so far?"

"Mostly _how did I get myself into this_ , with the occasional _what the hell is a smol_?"

Clarke smiles. "Okay, so you have basically two options. On the one hand, you can run a straightforward, professional account on-- you're probably interested in Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram?"

"Octavia mentioned Snapchat, but that might be too advanced for me."

"I think you could handle it, but I'm not sure the rewards are worth the stress it would give you so we can stick that on the back burner for now."

"I'm feeling better about this by the second." He leans closer to look over her shoulder. She has the Arcadia Parks and Recreation website up and is clicking through at random, sometimes saving photos to her desktop. "What's my second option?"

"Become a meme." She grins at him. "If you can manage blending in with internet culture without coming off as condescending to teenagers, I think it might be your best bet to actually do what Jaha wants these accounts to do, which is get teenagers looking at it. Otherwise it'll pretty much reach the people you're already reaching-- adults who are confused enough about the internet to not unfollow you, and who would probably rather be at a park anyway."

"You want me to try to be internet-cool," he says, dubious.

"It's not so much about being cool." She cocks her head to one side, thoughtful. "Things that get attention on the internet these days are mostly weird. Out of the box enough they stand out among the constant flood of content."

Bellamy considers this, nodding. "I can probably do weird."

Clarke smiles again. "Without even trying, I bet."

They take one of the pictures she saved from the website (the least awful one, according to her. Bellamy is no artist, but even he can see that most of the photos range from _come check out our parks, you'll probably stumble upon a half-buried corpse!_  to _look at this cursed plot of land_ to an image of a dog taking a dump) and messes with it until it looks almost like an old-timey postcard.

It takes a while, but Bellamy isn't complaining. Clarke is showing him what she's doing as she does it and she's so into it he can't help but be interested.

"You know you're working really hard for a project that's not your project," he points out when he realizes it's almost nine o'clock. She has slumped fully into his side, her back against his chest so he can see the laptop over her shoulder.

"You're going to be a phenomenon, I can feel it. I want in on the ground floor."

"Yeah, you're definitely getting all the credit." He shows her his phone, where he's been doing the legwork of downloading various apps and signing up for accounts. "There's already an Arcadia Parks and Rec department with a twitter in Virginia, so what do you think about this for our handle?"

"Parkadia," she reads, then smirks at him. "You deserve some of the credit, see?"

"High praise." He shakes his head. "I'm doing the same one for the instagram so I don't have to remember as many things."

"It's like you understand branding."

"It's like I'm actually competent at some parts of my job."

"Yeah, you're very convincing." She drums her fingers on her keyboard. "So the graphic is going to be super nice and normal, at least for now, because it's going to be the banner on Facebook and Twitter and then you can post it as your inaugural Instagram post."

"Okay. When does it get weird?"

"Well, that's what I've been thinking about. Facebook is-- pretty mainstream. It's gonna be the main one where people who aren't already following you will find you. So if you don't want to alienate your adult audience, you might want to keep that one pretty normal." She pauses. "Also, to appease Jaha. He might not understand that weird is good."

"Agreed. I'll keep all my weirdness on Instagram and Twitter, then?"

"Yeah. Be weird in 140 characters or less, and then use the same tweet for your photo captions."

"Solid." He flips through the really, truly horrific photos again and twists his mouth to one side, thinking. "What if I go for a kind of Night Vale vibe?"

"That's either going to sell people on coming or make sure they never set foot in a park again," Clarke teases.

"Okay, so we won't use the _nothing grows here because of our nightly satanic rituals_ picture, but what if we did that kind of text with a really appealing photo of the parks? Like... get a picture of kids playing on the playground, laughing, having a great time, but then caption it-- _what a beautiful day at the park! the sun is shining. children are laughing. why are they laughing? what do they know?_ or something?"

"I kind of love it," Clarke grins. "Like, enough to pique interest but not creepy enough to turn people off."

"That's the vibe I'm going for basically always."

"It's perfect." She's so close he can almost taste her smirk. "You're a natural."

"Naturally something," he mutters. "You realize the problem with all of this, don't you?"

"Realizing you might be decent at navigating social media has shaken you to your core?"

"Weirdly enough, my identity isn't that tied to my social media ineptitude. No, the problem is that I don't actually have any good photos of the parks. Or of smiling children playing in them. Isn't the whole point of the internet that you don't have to go outside? This project involves way more legwork than I anticipated."

"You're an example to your community," she says with mock graveness. "Don't you want the community to _Get Out_?"

"I want us to get a summer intern who can do this stuff."

"You'd just be grumbling the whole time about how Jaha should've just assigned this job to you so you're not perpetuating the heinous tradition of unpaid internships," she points out, with more confidence predicting his behavior than he would have expected.

Bellamy lets his head fall to her shoulder and sighs. "Yeah, you're probably right."

"I know I'm right."

"You know I'm gonna have to send everything to you for approval before I post it right? At least at the beginning."

"I know." She rests her head on his. "It's what I'm here for."

* * *

**Bellamy:** Do you know how creepy I feel walking around this park taking pictures on my phone?  
So creepy  
The creepiest

**Clarke:** are you giving off any white unmarked van vibes

**Bellamy:** I'd feel a lot safer if I was giving off any white vibes tbh

**Clarke:** touche  
are you at least getting good pictures?

**Bellamy:** You tell me  
[img]  
[img]  
[img]

**Clarke:** ...  
i mean, they're better than the website ones

**Bellamy:** Thats not a high bar to clear

**Clarke:** if only you knew someone with an artistic eye  
and a good camera  
and a dog. dogs are never creepy

**Bellamy:** I hope you're serious because I'm so relieved right now  
If you're just messing with me I might cry

**Clarke:** and as much as i want to see that, i actually am serious  
i could probably use some fresh air anyway

**Bellamy:** I'll try to snag us some city hall t-shirts or something slightly more official

**Clarke:** cool, bailey and i will bring treats  
for him and for us

**Bellamy:** Seriously, all the credit

**Clarke:** i'd settle for 75%

**Bellamy:** 80 at least

**Clarke:** agree to disagree

* * *

He doesn't become an sensation overnight. With Clarke at his side they manage to get the accounts off the ground enough to garner some attention, but Bellamy is still somehow caught off guard when he suddenly starts receiving tweets and tags and mentions and all sorts of things he only vaguely understands. He mostly just responds with pedantry and the weirdest reaction gifs he can find.

"Did you not realize this is what you're going for?" Clarke teases, her face gleeful as she scrolls through the notifications on his phone. Bailey tugs at the leash as another dog passes them but Bellamy manages to hold him back.

"I didn't realize it would be so many _kids_ ," he grumbles.

"Again, that was the goal."

"Yeah, but--" He makes an exasperated noise. "When I was their age I couldn't log onto any website without some adult warning me about stranger danger. Even when all I wanted to do was play Neopets. _Neopets,_ Clarke."

"I didn't realize they had the internet back in the Stone Age."

"I feel like a dirty old man."

"Nah." She loops her arm through his and pats his bicep. "You're mostly a regular old man. Or like an alien who has somehow convinced the youths that you're one of them."

"This isn't making me feel better," he lies.

It's hard to feel properly disgruntled when Clarke is cuddling up to him like this.

"You really don't have anything to worry about." Bailey stops to sniff at some weeds and she pulls away to snap a few pictures with her fancy camera. "The shelf life of memes these days is so short you won't have to be in the spotlight very long. Besides, Arcadia is a small town. Everyone will find something else to gossip about sooner or later."

"I maintain that I was not the right choice for this job."

"Come on." She flashes him a smile. "It hasn't been all bad."

And she's got him there. It's the third weekend in a row he's gotten to spend strolling through the parks with Clarke and he never wants to spend his weekend doing anything else.

But he can't just come out and _say_ that.

"I think I'm starting to get sun poisoning," he says instead. Clarke rolls her eyes fondly.

"So dramatic."

They finish their loop around the park and settle on a bench overlooking a small pond. Clarke flips through the photos she's taken, showing him the ones she likes for instagram as well as the ones she likes just for the hell of it-- Bailey with his tongue lolling, Bellamy mid-sneeze.

"What now?" He asks. She looks up from where she was still grinning down at the display.

"I might get this one framed."

"Yeah, you've definitely captured my best angle," he says, dry. "I meant what are your plans for the rest of the day?"

"I know, but I wasn't done making fun of you." She carefully replaces the lens cap and bends down to tug at the stick Bailey has been playing with. He jumps up, eager to play tug of war or fetch, depending on whether he can keep ahold of it. "I don't have any plans. Why? You have something in mind?"

"I have to go over to Mecha, Luna set up a food truck fair in honor of the first day of summer."

"Yeah?" She perks up. "I could go for some food."

"Cool, that's what I was hoping you'd say."

"Aww, you want to spend time with me."

"I want to trick you into letting me buy you dinner so I don't feel like I owe you so much."

"Yeah, spending time outside on a nice day with my friend and my dog is a real hardship." She nudges him with her elbow. "How many more times are you gonna thank me? It's getting old."

"At least a couple more," he says, and when she laughs he feels the corners of his mouth twitch.

The food trucks have drawn a nice crowd and Clarke passes him Bailey's leash to hang onto with a death grip, her hand slipping into his free one. Just to keep them together, he tells himself. Even if he believes it, he can't make himself stop enjoying the feel of her grip on his fingers, the softness of her skin.

She does, after some argument, let him pay for her food, and when they squeeze into the tight space at the end of a picnic table, she presses right up into his side. Quiet falls between them as they eat, the chatter of the crowd and the rosy glow of sunset casting a sort of magical quality over the evening. Bellamy looks over at her, words on the tip of his tongue, but whatever they are, they die as soon as he meets her eyes.

Her lips quirk into a soft smile.

"Good day?" She asks.

Bellamy nods, ducks his head and hoping she can't see him flush in the semi-darkness.

"Yeah. Good day."

* * *

"Bellamy, how is the Facebook coming along?"

He's not caught quite so off guard at his name this time, though he still can't say he was paying complete attention.

"Good." He coughs. "We, uh-- We've got a few hundred people following the page. We used it to get the word out about the food truck event and the turnout was pretty good. I'm still figuring out how to gauge the results, but it seems pretty promising."

"I like what I've been seeing," says Jaha.

"Yes, the pictures are lovely," Vera adds. "Did you take them yourself?"

"I got a friend to give me a hand with those."

Luna catches his eye and smirks. Even though she doesn't use technology all that much, he's pretty sure she's been shown the other accounts by now, and she _definitely_ clocked him holding Clarke's hand at the food truck thing. He can't say for sure whether she knows more than she's letting on, but-- she doesn't usually make that face at him, so he thinks the chances are good.

"I'm personally a fan of the captions," she says, and yeah. She knows.

"Again, I've had a lot of help. I'm not sure if you know Clarke Griffin in the health department--"

"Clarke and I go way back," Jaha says, his eyes lighting up. "She's sharp. I'm glad you've had someone with some know-how to show you the ropes."

"We work well together. I was actually thinking of running the _Get Outside_ campaign past her, see if she has any health angles she wants to play up."

"We've recruited Eric Jackson to lead the health and fitness angle," Jaha says dismissively. "But good thinking. We can always use fresh ideas and more interdepartmental cooperation."

"Sure. Just-- a thought."

"Keep it up."

"I will."

"I'm sure you will," Luna says under her breath to him as Jaha and Vera move on to other topics. Bellamy shoots her a look, but he can't blame her when it's not very effective. He doesn't have a leg to stand on when it comes to Clarke Griffin, and apparently it's obvious.

He just sort of hopes it isn't that obvious to her.

* * *

"I talked to Jaha the other day."

"I would assume so, he's your boss."

Bellamy had worried, when the forecast showed scattered thunderstorms throughout the day, that he wouldn't get to see Clarke. Before he'd even had time to come up with a backup plan she'd texted him to grab his DVD of _The Princess Bride_ and get his ass over to her apartment.

Who needs a park anyway?

"No." He pinches her calf where it rests across his lap and she kicks him reflexively, not even looking up from her phone. "I mean, I talked to him about you."

"About me?" Her brow furrows. "What about me, exactly?"

"About getting you to work with us for _Get Out_."

"Eric is repping Health on that."

"Yeah, I know that _now_."

She looks up now and smiles. "So you just wanted to pile more work on my already enormous workload?"

"Of course not. I figured you might as well get paid for the hours you spend helping me tweet. And--" He shrugs, resolutely not making eye contact. "I don't know, I thought we worked pretty well together."

Clarke sets her phone down on the coffee table, deliberate, and scoots closer until he has to look up, if only to figure out what's going on.

"We do work pretty well together." She's still smiling, so at least he hasn't made too much an idiot of himself. "But you don't need a work-related excuse to hang out with me. In fact, I was kind of hoping we could see more of each other-- like this."

"Like this," he echoes. Clarke's hand comes to cover his and he belatedly realizes his is resting on her bare knee.

"Recreationally." She leans in, her eyes flickering between meeting his gaze and studying his lips.

Bellamy grins, slow. "Recreation is literally what I do."

"Oh my god," she groans. "Shut up and--"

She's still telling him off when he closes the gap between them. Something warm curls inside him, wrapping around his heart, filling his lungs, making him feel lightheaded. He almost wants to laugh, but then he'd have to stop kissing her, so instead he slides a hand into her hair and tugs her closer, opening his mouth for her when she goes to deepen it.

When she breaks away to nuzzle his cheek, press her lips to his jaw, _that's_ when he lets himself beam at her.

"That's what you had in mind, right?"

Clarke kisses him again, heady and promising. "For starters."

* * *

"How's this?"

Clarke tucks her chin on his shoulder as he tilts the camera so she can see his work. She's been teaching him some things about photography, like 'focus' and 'lighting' and 'getting everything in the frame'. He's still using her photos for now, but he doesn't think he's doing too badly overall.

"What is that?"

"It's the reflection of the trees on the water."

"Huh." She presses her lips to the skin right above his collar and he can feel her smiling. "I can see what you were going for but it looks more like you were swinging the camera as you walked and didn't realize it was going off."

"You clearly don't understand art."

"Yeah, that must be it." She grins at him. "I don't know why you keep me around."

"Me either." He raises the viewfinder to his eye again, this time framing it so that the trees get in the photo too. "How's that?"

"Better."

"Will my legions of followers be impressed?"

"You care more about impressing them than your girlfriend?" She teases. Bellamy smirks down at her.

"World domination waits for no one, Clarke. Besides, I already won you over, didn't I?"

She rolls her eyes but slips her hand into his and squeezes once.

"Yeah. I guess you did."


End file.
